After Kibi, Neti, and Miko drained mugs of cool mint tea and had bowls of stew in hand, the six students sat around sharing stories.
Boro told of finding the source of the fire, and Sata described their search for the whimpering sound in the woods. The little girl sat quietly, listening, only answering simple questions with nods or shakes of her head.
Miko and Neti told their story of trudging through the smoke, then along the beach, but not a word was spoken about a certain discussion that took place on the bluff.
As the setting sun neared the ocean, they bought a loaf and some cheese, walked down the beach until they came to a little stream, and followed it into the trees to camp.
Six thoughtful students lay awake the following morning, wondering what they would do if they couldn’t find their teacher and friends.
The little girl, who had shared blankets with Sata, got up and went into the bushes. When she returned, she brought everyone out of their thoughts with two simple words.
“I’m
hungry.”
The students began throwing blankets back and stretching. Neti tore bread and sliced cheese. The seven lost souls sat in a circle on the cool sand to eat and talk.
“We should wait at the village,” Miko asserted, trying once again to find his
leadership voice.
“If Ilika . . . or anyone . . . makes it there,” Boro said, “they’ll stay awhile, so we don’t need to sit there all day.”
“I agree,” Sata said. “But I think we should go in every day.”
“Yeah,” Neti joined. “Maybe . . . lunchtime and dinnertime. I want to wash in the stream before we go. Me and Sata can help our new friend clean up.”
The little girl’s mouth was full of bread, so she just nodded.
“How long will we have to wait?” Toli asked with a hint of impatience.
Kibi breathed a tiny sigh of exasperation. “When we were talking about this back at the healer’s house, Ilika said it could take a week to find each other if there were problems. The town we were in burned down. If you ask me, that’s a problem. We wait at least a week.”
Boro
nodded.
After washing some clothes, they hung the wet things on trees, packed everything else, and walked the half-mile back to the village.
No sign or word greeted them about their friends.
But several more refugees from the fire had arrived, all looking quite lost, some of them still coughing, most of them penniless. Kibi approached the matron of the eatery and arranged for fish stew for anyone who arrived without money.
“What now?” Sata asked after they had been in the village an hour and had done everything they could.
Kibi was gazing out to sea. “Lessons.”
Toli looked at her with disbelief. “Lessons?”
“That’s right,” she replied a bit forcefully. “We’re not going to forget the things Ilika taught us. We’re in this group to learn, remember?”
Toli cowered slightly, then nodded.
Sata took them through a review of all their mathematics, drawing in the wet sand near the ocean with fingers or sticks.
Kibi pressed them to remember everything about geometry and navigation. She wanted it fresh in her mind in case she had to look for Ilika’s
country by herself.
Using shells for subatomic particles, Toli walked them through all their basic chemistry, including the structure of water and the dissolved salts of the ocean.
While sitting in the dunes above the beach, Boro reviewed the rules of logic, but often found his students gazing toward the village instead of paying attention.
The little girl fell asleep in the sand.
As they silently ate fish stew at dinnertime, Kibi’s eyes were moist and her shoulders drooped with defeat.
Just then a pair of shaggy donkey ears appeared over the first rise in the road, with Mati just behind. Next came a girl riding on Ilika’s shoulders, then Buna, and finally a boy walking beside Rini.
Bowls of half-eaten stew were left for the gulls as Kibi dashed up the hill, ran right past Tera, and surrounded Ilika with her arms, kissing him with all the feeling in her heart.
He returned her kiss with just as much feeling.
When they finally separated enough to look into each other’s eyes, they heard a voice come from above their heads. “I think she likes you, Ilika.”
“Yes, Misa, I think she does. And I like her just as much.”
A little farther back in the line, Toli and Buna stood facing each other.
“I . . . really missed you,” Toli said softly.
Mixed emotions visited Buna’s face for several long moments. “Toli . . .
there are things about you . . . I don’t like . . . but . . . I missed you too.”
They carefully put their arms around each other, as if handling something fragile.
“Okay, lovebirds,” Mati said from the front of the line. “Is there anything to eat? We’ve had nothing but berries for two days!”
Everyone started chuckling.
“Come on!” Boro called. “Plenty of fish stew right down here!”
That evening, the group was again happy and animated, and quite willing to do anything Ilika wanted. Boro and Miko collected plenty of firewood to
prepare for the telling of many stories. Misa and Kamo knew the little girl from Boro’s group, revealed that her name was Tati, and took over taking care of her.
With cheese and plums to munch on, Ilika asked Buna to relate their adventures. She told about their flight from the inn and the rescue of Tera and the other animals from the burning stable. Then she described the glowing ball of light that Tera insisted on following.
Kibi’s mouth dropped open.
Misa and Kamo rolled their eyes and figured it was something adults made up to keep kids in line.
After Buna finished sharing the rescue of the six children, Sata told of finding the source of the fire and little Tati, and Miko related their flight from Lumber Town and trek along the ocean.
Many questions about the green light followed, but Ilika would say little, except that it was a friend. He changed the subject by asking all his students to report any problems because of the fire, or any supplies that had been lost.
Neti cleared her throat. “I could hardly stop coughing the first day, but it’s getting better.”
“I . . . um . . . forgot the shovel,” Miko admitted with a slight cringe.
Toli squirmed for a moment. “I . . . left the rope.”
“I forgot the globe,” Ilika admitted with a hint of sadness. “We’ll have to continue navigation lessons with paper.”
“We have no idea where Tati’s family might be,” Boro said, “but we haven’t been to the house west of the road.”
“Kamo has an uncle who was working in the woods north of town,” Ilika explained. “We just have to find him.”
“I was up on the hill playing, and saw my parents running away from the fire, toward the capital road,” Misa announced, trying to act grown-up like the others who had just made their reports.
Miko put a few more sticks on the fire to give a little extra light, and everyone made their beds. Ilika asked Kibi to walk on the beach with him.
“I was really worried about you,” Kibi said. “If I never found you, I was going to travel until I found your country.”
Ilika took her hand as they walked. “You can’t get there from here . . .
except in my ship.”
Kibi was thoughtful for a moment. “Looking for it would have been better than staying here.”
“I understand. I was worried about you too. Things like this will happen sometimes. Are you okay with that?”
“I don’t want to lose you. But as long as we have a meeting place . . . I’ll be okay.”
“We’ll always have a meeting place, usually two or three. I heard you had your hands full.”
“You know what happened in my group? I mean, the things that weren’t in Miko’s story?”
“No details. Just that you were well-challenged, and you handled it.”
“How did you know?”
“The same voice that spoke to you, speaks to me. She spoke to Boro too.
It’s not very hard to guess what you had to deal with. That’s probably why you weren’t asked to rescue children at the same time.”
Kibi smiled, stopped walking, snuggled close to Ilika, and gave him another kiss he wasn’t going to forget any time soon.
Deep Learning Notes
Miko was recently humbled by his conflict with Kibi and Neti on the bluff.
That gave him a little extra patience when his idea about waiting at the village was challenged, enough patience to discover that his basic idea was eventually accepted by everyone.
Some people have a tendency, after a crisis, to stay in a state of alarm (or
“freaking out”) even when it is no longer helpful. Other people quickly return to normal tasks and routines. Which tendency do the two leaders (Kibi and Boro) have? If they hadn’t done lessons that day, what would Toli have done all day?
Why do you think Ilika didn’t want to say much about the glowing green ball?
Does this remind you of something else he didn’t want to talk much about?
By making sure Kibi understood they will sometimes be separated, what kind of relationship was Ilika developing with her?